Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/321

 with whom she exchanged glances. Eyes which for years had stared at her with impudence, indifference, or osten- tatious blankness now held a sort of friendly inquiry, something conciliatory, which told her they would have spoken had they not been met by the immobile mask of imperturbability that she wore in Prouty.

" Why the chinook? " Kate asked herself ironically.

The warm wave met her everywhere and she continued to wonder, though it did not melt the ice about her heart that was of many years' accumulation.

Kate had sold her wool, finally, through a commission house, and at an advance over the price at which she had held it when Bowers had advised her to accept the buyer's offer. She expected the draft in the three weeks' accumu- lation of mail for which she had come to Prouty. When the mail was handed out to her, she looked in astonishment at the amount of it. At first glance, there appeared to be only a little less than a bushel. The postmaster, who had forgotten Bowers's instructions, grinned knowingly as he passed out photographs and sweet-scented, pink-tinted en- velopes addressed to the sheepherder in feminine writing.

" So he had done it! " Kate mused as she crowded them all into the leather mail sack which bulged to the point of refusing to buckle. The letter she expected was among the rest, and, as she looked at the draft it contained, a smile that had meant not only gratification but exultation lurked at the corners of her mouth. She led her horse to the bank and tied it. Mr. Wentz came nimbly forward to the receiving teller's window as she entered, and flashed his eloquent eyes at her.

" You're quite a stranger! " he greeted her tritely, and added, " But we've been reading ab^ut you."

Kate looked her surprise.